The Decadence Movement which flourished in the 1890s produced some of Europe's most striking and exotic works of literature The Decadents, convinced that civilization was in a state of terminal decline, refused to rebel as the Romantics had, but set forth instead to cultivate the pleasures of calculated perversity and to seek the artificial paradise of drug-induced hallucination. The Dedalus Book of Decadence looks south to sample the essence of fine French decadent writing. It succeeds in delivering a range of writers either searching vigorously for the thrill of a healthy crime or lamenting their impuissance from a sickly stupor. --Andrew St George in The Independent

A black feast with offerings from the major practitioners and their precursors in France and England.

"The Dedalus Book of Decadence looks south to sample the essence of fine French decadent writing. It succeeds in delivering a range of writers either searching vigorously for the thrill of a healthy crime or lamenting their impuissance from a sickly stupor." -- Andrew St George in The Independent "An invaluable sampler of spleen, everything from Baudelaire and Rimbaud to Dowson and Flecker. Let's hear it for 'luxe, calme et volupte'." -- Anne Billson in Time Out

This volume collects the poetry and prose that served as the model and inspiration for so much of fin-de-siecle English and French writing, providing a vivid picture of sexual excess and debauchery in a cruel and violent society which has never ceased to fascinate the library and scholarly imagination of succeeding generations. The editor, novelist Geoffrey Farrington, provides a general introduction to the literary and political milieux of imperial Rome, and introductory notes to works by such authors as Ovid, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Juvenal. "...concentrates on the outrageous behaviour of the ruling class of the Roman Empire, as described in passages selected from the prose, poetry and history of the period. Their murder plots, sexual deviances, orgies, cruelty and incessant intrigue put our politicians and their peccadillos on a play school level." Time Out

When the rich and well-connected Raoule de Vénérande becomes enamored of Jacques Silvert, a poor young man who makes artificial flowers for a living, she turns him into her mistress and eventually into her wife. Raoule's suitor, a cigar-smoking former hussar officer, becomes an accomplice in the complications that ensue.